Princess Tales
by ArielleArcher
Summary: Drabble haven for Princess Bride tales.
1. Top Two: a Princess Bride Tale

_Disclaimer: I don't own The Princess Bride, but I do own my True Love for Westley!_

Early on in their marriage, Westley found several flaws in Buttercup. Actually, he found more than several flaws, but for the sake of his undying devotion to her he decided to pretend that the other ten or fifteen flaws didn't exist.

Westley was a firm believer in True Love. He had survived pirates, the Cliffs of Insanity, a mad Sicilian, The Machine, and even a brief and undocumented encounter with ninjas all for the sake of Buttercup, and he honestly considered the trials he endured worth it. Well, maybe not the ninjas…but that's beside the point.

The point is, despite being romantic Westley was a realist at heart – one of the last. He realized very quickly that relationships, even relationships based on True Love, could have no hope for survival if subjected to constant nitpicking and fingerpointing. So, after ruminating over this realization for several weeks, Westley resolved to overlook most of his darling's faults for the sake of his undying devotion to her. This worked for many, many years and innumerable, incalculable days, until he didn't even notice her minor flaws.

He just saw her Top Two.

Soon, those Top Two became Westley's Achilles's heel, his Trojan Horse, his Delilah. He didn't actually know who any of those people were, but the general feeling was the same – shock followed soon after by misery. What was he to do when faced with his wife's two major flaws? After some more incalculable days, Westley decided to go with a tried and true remedy: ruminating.

Problem number one? Buttercup's brain – or rather, her lack. While Westley loved his sweet lady to the Fire Swamp and back, even he could admit that she wasn't quite the brightest torch in the bracket. Or the sharpest knife in the kitchen. Or any of the other usual expressions employed to describe brilliance in the human mind.

It wasn't like he expected her to take up charting galaxial constellations, or quoting quantum physics equations while balancing a book on her head – books and Buttercup were a dangerous combination – he just wished he could sometimes see a spark of _something_ in her eyes. Even if it was only once in a while, he wanted some sort of reassurance that there was still a light turned on upstairs.

Was that so much to ask?

Problem number two: Buttercup's naiveté and the trouble it caused. Because yes, only _his_ Buttercup would consider stopping to converse with three strange men in the middle of a deserted forest a safe pastime; only _his_ Buttercup would think that giving herself up to a false marriage would save him from her pig fiancé; and only _his_ Buttercup would trust selfsame pig to keep his word about delivering certain letters to a certain ship.

His True Love could certainly be an dunce at times.

Of course, he came for her as he always did and everything worked out swimmingly, but still – it was the sheer _principle_ of the matter! She really had no survival skills whatsoever. Perhaps it was the result of some deadly flaw in her genetics, and she hadn't been meant to live past age fourteen. Perhaps she was a weakest link in nature and his interference had saved her from death. Well, he _had_ saved her from death, but that's beside the point.

The point being, no one could argue that Buttercup had beauty in place of brains. (Buttercup herself had tried to disprove this once, but since the use of debating skills requires a brain she didn't get very far).

And yet, despite it all, Westley had come to a fairly positive conclusion: he still loved Buttercup. Whether because of fate, or destiny, but certainly not because of her cooking, he was linked to her for eternity. In fact, he was _pleased_ that she couldn't quote quantum physics, because their love defied those tightly-laced laws and no amount book sense could explain it. He was _pleased_ with her naiveté, because it kept their love fresh and pure, in a way that hardened cynicism never would.

Most of all, after many, many years and innumerable days of ruminating on the subject, Westley was pleased to realize that Buttercup's two biggest flaws were the Top Two reasons that he had stayed unequivocally and irrevocably in True Love with her.


	2. Stuck: a Princess Bride Tale

_A/N: I was always curious why Buttercup was living on a farm in the middle of nowhere, with no family of her own, but apparently a farm-boy (Westley). _

* * *

><p>Buttercup's first memory was of the farm.<p>

Rationally, of course, she knew that there had to have been something before it – her birth, for a start. All the old stories began with births. And for there to have been a birth, there must have been parents. And since parents were generally considered family, she must have had, at one point in time, a family.

Yet even with these forces of logical reasoning behind her, Buttercup was quite convinced that she had always lived _alone_ on her little farm deep in the countryside. No family, no relatives, no close friends: just one girl and a barn full of animals, watching the sun rise and fall into sunset. Oh, after a while there was Westley, too, but she had no specific memory of when he came along.

It was like a muddled dream; one moment she was fetching water from the stream and the next moment he was doing the job for her. Two parts flowed seamlessly together, until Buttercup couldn't remember which was true and which was not. Before long she was thoroughly persuaded that Westley had existed on the farm as long as she had, which in her mind felt far longer than anyone should be expected to exist anywhere.

That was how they went on, day after day and year after year. Just one girl, one farm-boy, and a barn full of animals watching the sun rise and fall into sunset. Westley and Buttercup, locked in the slow spin-and-pull of time. Westley and Buttercup, stuck in the muck while the whole world waited for a simple girl to realize the meaning of a farm-boy's favorite phrase.

"…As you wish."

FIN


End file.
